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 PhillyT wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I think Tyranids win. They actually seem like the perfect counter to Orks, since they strip worlds of all organic matter and atmosphere. I doubt spores would survive, and if they did the planet would be inhospitable to life.

Orks do hordes and fighting pretty well, but Tyranids are like 'every inch of your planet covered in razor sharp scythes and flailing hooks'. I think Orks would just get chopped up. They probably don't even have fun.

I think it is the opposite. Even a scrubbed dead world will be terra formed by ork spores. As the hive moves through, orks will replenish the dead worlds, making them ork worlds. Granted, the tyranids could then turn around and re consume the galaxy, but it would sort of be a perpetual motion machine. And that is of course assuming that tyranids could win in the first place.

I think the addition of Ghaz indicates the balance will switch.

Don't fungi, like Nids, require dead biomass?

 Frazzled wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I think Tyranids win. They actually seem like the perfect counter to Orks, since they strip worlds of all organic matter and atmosphere. I doubt spores would survive, and if they did the planet would be inhospitable to life.

Orks do hordes and fighting pretty well, but Tyranids are like 'every inch of your planet covered in razor sharp scythes and flailing hooks'. I think Orks would just get chopped up. They probably don't even have fun.

I think it is the opposite. Even a scrubbed dead world will be terra formed by ork spores. As the hive moves through, orks will replenish the dead worlds, making them ork worlds. Granted, the tyranids could then turn around and re consume the galaxy, but it would sort of be a perpetual motion machine. And that is of course assuming that tyranids could win in the first place.

I think the addition of Ghaz indicates the balance will switch.

Don't fungi, like Nids, require dead biomass?

Orks seem to break physics and create their own.

Yeah pretty much. It has something to do with the way the Old Ones engineered them. They were sort of developed as the Final Solution to the Necron menace but were left somewhat unfinished.

They can be spored on a dead world and create a completely self contained ecosystem. Effectively terraforming anything.

The easiest way to make sense of it is likely magic/warp energy. The same reason or way orks grow through conflict and not as a factor of food consumption or activity.

 PhillyT wrote:
Even a scrubbed dead world will be terra formed by ork spores.

I admit I don't actually know what the official line is on that, but it doesn't sound very scientific. For a start, how do the spores get there? Planets are pretty small and far apart. Space would literally have to be saturated with spores for them to cross contaminate each other. That doesn't really make sense to me as we would see every planet, moon and asteroid already terraformed by Orks. They could arrive by Hulk, but that sounds slow. Without an atmosphere the surface of an earth like planet would be exposed to a lot of radiation and some quite extreme temperatures. The spores would have to survive that in a hard vacuum without water. This is all starting to sound a bit far fetched, but even if it were possible it would take thousands (maybe millions) of years for microscopic spores to restore the atmosphere.

I can see that Orks might never be quite extinct from the Galaxy, and their numbers might slowly recover after the Tyranids move on, but I would still call that a win a for the nids.

Hey man, you aren't going to find scientific explanations for anything in 40k Smacks!

Ork space hulks and ships are actually really fast. They are warp capable craft that "find" rifts in the warp and fly through them, then come out "where there is something to kill."

In the fluff it seems as though the implication is the gestalt psyker energy of the orks involved opens the rifts and their desire to find something to kill deposits them where they need to be to get in a fight. Like you said, if it was all random, they would never find anything in a galaxy as big as ours.

As far as the terraforming portion, the Old Ones made the Eldar into a psyker powerhouse through their engineering. Orks are latent psykers, with most of their power being a component of their unique physiology. None of it makes realistic sense.

Then again, with the way fluff evolves, I don't really know how accurate some portions of the above still are. I don't think many has been specifically invalidated.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I think Tyranids win. They actually seem like the perfect counter to Orks, since they strip worlds of all organic matter and atmosphere. I doubt spores would survive, and if they did the planet would be inhospitable to life.

Orks do hordes and fighting pretty well, but Tyranids are like 'every inch of your planet covered in razor sharp scythes and flailing hooks'. I think Orks would just get chopped up. They probably don't even have fun.

I think it is the opposite. Even a scrubbed dead world will be terra formed by ork spores. As the hive moves through, orks will replenish the dead worlds, making them ork worlds. Granted, the tyranids could then turn around and re consume the galaxy, but it would sort of be a perpetual motion machine. And that is of course assuming that tyranids could win in the first place.

I think the addition of Ghaz indicates the balance will switch.

Don't fungi, like Nids, require dead biomass?

Orks seem to break physics and create their own.

That is an actual question on my part. Is there canonical proof for your statement? Otherwise, fungi can't live on a dead world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PhillyT wrote:
Yeah pretty much. It has something to do with the way the Old Ones engineered them. They were sort of developed as the Final Solution to the Necron menace but were left somewhat unfinished.

They can be spored on a dead world and create a completely self contained ecosystem. Effectively terraforming anything.

The easiest way to make sense of it is likely magic/warp energy. The same reason or way orks grow through conflict and not as a factor of food consumption or activity.

I liked it better when they were plants with chlorophyll in their bloodstream.

It is specifically stated that the first stages of the ork process creates an atmosphere that allows orks to thrive.

There is nothing normal about orks. Also, they are not fungi in any sense we understand. We aren't even sure that bacteria or fungi-like organism CAN'T live on dead planets, we just have no evidence at this point.

Orks are able to create habitable zones on Spacehulks and Rokks through their very presence. The ork life cycle is pretty cool and interesting.

Ok. Thanks for the clarification.

 PhillyT wrote:
It is specifically stated that the first stages of the ork process creates an atmosphere that allows orks to thrive.

There is nothing normal about orks. Also, they are not fungi in any sense we understand. We aren't even sure that bacteria or fungi-like organism CAN'T live on dead planets, we just have no evidence at this point.

Orks are able to create habitable zones on Spacehulks and Rokks through their very presence. The ork life cycle is pretty cool and interesting.

The Imperium should keep Ork pets to use as cheap terraformers

Thats a good idea actually.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
They cannot reseed a world with the raw materials of industry.

"The raw materials of industry" != biomass.

 Frazzled wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I think Tyranids win. They actually seem like the perfect counter to Orks, since they strip worlds of all organic matter and atmosphere. I doubt spores would survive, and if they did the planet would be inhospitable to life.

Orks do hordes and fighting pretty well, but Tyranids are like 'every inch of your planet covered in razor sharp scythes and flailing hooks'. I think Orks would just get chopped up. They probably don't even have fun.

I think it is the opposite. Even a scrubbed dead world will be terra formed by ork spores. As the hive moves through, orks will replenish the dead worlds, making them ork worlds. Granted, the tyranids could then turn around and re consume the galaxy, but it would sort of be a perpetual motion machine. And that is of course assuming that tyranids could win in the first place.

I think the addition of Ghaz indicates the balance will switch.

Don't fungi, like Nids, require dead biomass?

Regular fungi yes, I believe so. But we do not know if the same is true for ork spores. There are stories of orks losing space battles next to asteroid belts, then years later orks appear with roks and are attacking from those same asteroid belts. Which might mean that orks can repopulate almost anywhere. Also, I believe I read somewhere where ork spores can survive space, which means that they don't need an atmosphere to live on. Thus re population of dead worlds are possible for the orkoid races.

Tyranids suck the water and nutrition from the ground AND the very atmosphere.

I don't care how tough and magical Orks are. They can't grow out of nothing.

 Frazzled wrote:
Thats a good idea actually. Deleted from Imperial records

HERETIC!!!

Broly wrote:
Tyranids suck the water and nutrition from the ground AND the very atmosphere.

I don't care how tough and magical Orks are. They can't grow out of nothing.

Warp energy.

 Smacks wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Thats a good idea actually. Deleted from Imperial records

HERETIC!!!

 Frazzled wrote:
Thats a good idea actually.

No, no it isn't. All of those things running around with Orks is some variant of the Orkoid species.

 PhillyT wrote:
As far as Tyranids being smarter, where does anyone get that impression? They are instinct based with a Hivemind that is brilliant on the genetic level, but hasn't shown itself to be terribly effective in battles where the opposition has comparable or even fewer numbers. The hivefleets that have been defeated so far vastly outnumbered the defenders.

S-skarfang?

 Melissia wrote:

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
They cannot reseed a world with the raw materials of industry.

"The raw materials of industry" != biomass.

The Tyranids also eat the raw materials as a supplement to their biomass based diet.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Thats a good idea actually.

No, no it isn't. All of those things running around with Orks is some variant of the Orkoid species.

Pets and future workers for the glory of the Imperium muahahah!

IN order to do that they'd have to devour the entire planet. They do not. Therefor, they do not do that.

 Smacks wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
Even a scrubbed dead world will be terra formed by ork spores.

I admit I don't actually know what the official line is on that, but it doesn't sound very scientific. For a start, how do the spores get there? Planets are pretty small and far apart. Space would literally have to be saturated with spores for them to cross contaminate each other. That doesn't really make sense to me as we would see every planet, moon and asteroid already terraformed by Orks.

Orks can sometimes shoot an unshootable gun. Or eat uneadible things. Or live on drifting asteroids in the open space...I'm not making this up - it's all in the dex. But the thing is that sometimes they can, sometimes they can't and there's no real logics in it.

The oficial line is: "ANYTHING can happen when orks are involved, no logical explanation needed".

How do they get dragged into WAAAGHS?! How do this mellages spread? Not that orkses have some Daily News or stuff like that. Though, i'd imagine it to look awesome.



It's just that there's somehow always a huge number of orks when WAAAAAGH! rages on. No need to think bout where they come from. They're just there and ready for krumpin'

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
As far as Tyranids being smarter, where does anyone get that impression? They are instinct based with a Hivemind that is brilliant on the genetic level, but hasn't shown itself to be terribly effective in battles where the opposition has comparable or even fewer numbers. The hivefleets that have been defeated so far vastly outnumbered the defenders.

S-skarfang?

Clever boy!

There are exceptions to the norm. The other side of it is the fact that they need to out number opposition by huge magnitudes to win.

 Melissia wrote:
IN order to do that they'd have to devour the entire planet. They do not. Therefor, they do not do that.

True, although they do reduce the planet's radius by like a 5 percent iirc. In the process of nomnoming the planet, the Tyranids move more matter than the entirety of the Adeptus Mechanicus can in 20 years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PhillyT wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
As far as Tyranids being smarter, where does anyone get that impression? They are instinct based with a Hivemind that is brilliant on the genetic level, but hasn't shown itself to be terribly effective in battles where the opposition has comparable or even fewer numbers. The hivefleets that have been defeated so far vastly outnumbered the defenders.

S-skarfang?

Clever boy!

There are exceptions to the norm. The other side of it is the fact that they need to out number opposition by huge magnitudes to win.

Which its not hard to do, as gaunts are cheaper than lasbolts.

Well the Hive Fleets have been beaten so far.

 PhillyT wrote:
Well the Hive Fleets have been beaten so far.

By huge amounts of troops.

Fewer troops than tyranids. It isn't an overly complicated calculus = Tyranids overcome the ranged technology through attrition and vast numbers, similar to orks. With some extremely rare exceptions, they must vastly out number their opponents to win.

 PhillyT wrote:
Fewer troops than tyranids. It isn't an overly complicated calculus = Tyranids overcome the ranged technology through attrition and vast numbers, similar to orks. With some extremely rare exceptions, they must vastly out number their opponents to win.

And then when they win, they win your world and everything on it, as well as any other edible planets in the system.

There is a reason why both Kryptman and now the Eldar have adopted scorched earth policies, waiting for the Tyranids to invade a world and then burning the world taking as many Tyranids as possible with them. The risk of losing to the Tyranids on the ground is too great; if you lose, all the damage you inflict upon them might as well count for nothing because almost all of the lost Tyranid organisms are recovered, along with an enormous amount of extra resources.

90% casualties doesn't matter when you get the resources at the end to walk away from the planet with more than you arrived with. The only practical solution is to a) deny the planet itself and b) destroy the fleet in space to stop it moving on to an easier target (that undefended agri-world two systems over?) and coming back with even greater strength while you are badly mauled from the last fight.

Except that nids are not 100% efecient. So lose a lot of that biomass. If a fex was slain and burned you wouldn't get back 100% that was there. Even if you did you lose a % of the biomass to remake him... Again.

willhman wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I think Tyranids win. They actually seem like the perfect counter to Orks, since they strip worlds of all organic matter and atmosphere. I doubt spores would survive, and if they did the planet would be inhospitable to life.

Orks do hordes and fighting pretty well, but Tyranids are like 'every inch of your planet covered in razor sharp scythes and flailing hooks'. I think Orks would just get chopped up. They probably don't even have fun.

I think it is the opposite. Even a scrubbed dead world will be terra formed by ork spores. As the hive moves through, orks will replenish the dead worlds, making them ork worlds. Granted, the tyranids could then turn around and re consume the galaxy, but it would sort of be a perpetual motion machine. And that is of course assuming that tyranids could win in the first place.

I think the addition of Ghaz indicates the balance will switch.

Don't fungi, like Nids, require dead biomass?

Regular fungi yes, I believe so. But we do not know if the same is true for ork spores. There are stories of orks losing space battles next to asteroid belts, then years later orks appear with roks and are attacking from those same asteroid belts. Which might mean that orks can repopulate almost anywhere. Also, I believe I read somewhere where ork spores can survive space, which means that they don't need an atmosphere to live on. Thus re population of dead worlds are possible for the orkoid races.

Not just Ork spores can survive space. Actual, real-world spores can survive space.